With Santos out last week it's interesting that McCarthy announced that he's leaving Congress at the end of this year. Meaning a few days left (considering the generous recess they take).

McCarthy Says He Will Leave Congress at the End of the Year
About two months after being ousted as speaker, Representative Kevin McCarthy said he would exit the House a year early.

Mr. McCarthy’s imminent departure will shrink the already slim Republican majority, which went to three seats from four with the expulsion last week of Representative George Santos of New York.

After he was ousted from the speakership in October, Mr. McCarthy gave an inconclusive answer about whether he would remain in Congress. “I’ll take a look at that,” he said then. Later, in an effort to bat down reports and rumors that he was leaving immediately, he told reporters that he was staying and even planned to run for re-election.

But his position as a rank-and-file member of the House side by side with the Republicans who voted to remove him from power had grown untenable and Mr. McCarthy found the experience to be incredibly painful. His closest allies on the Hill have been anticipating his imminent departure for weeks, even as he has dodged questions about his future.

So another of Trump's toadys is out and the lunatic fringe are still there (MTG, Gaetz, Boebert, etc.)

Trump wants to take over the ability to call elections and wants to let Putin win in Ukraine. This GOP House has been largely inclined to tilt in those directions.

To spell this out, the number of members needed to hold the slimmest of majorities is 218. The GOP right now have 221. There are a couple of vacant seats in the House. The deadline to run for the seat in California is on Friday, hence McCarthy's timing (the NY Times article is a short one to start with this announcement, they'll spell it out more as the story takes shape). If the house were to flip before the end of the term a LOT of work could get done in a hurry this term, so if any other disaffected GOP members were to leave before next year's election, it could happen. It would allow things like the John Lewis voting rights legislation to go through to shore up election security (the GOP have tried to tear apart election apparatus at the local level since the Supreme Court knocked out large pieces of the old Voting Rights Act. Putting the act in place would make all of the GOP nonsense moot.)

Wikipedia

As to the last post: It's a fair bet that he'll become a lame duck president half way through. Don't kid yourself. Stop yanking our chains and stay on topic. Your pontificating is unpleasant.